Roughly half the Twitter accounts pushing to ‘reopen America’ are bots, researchers found
There’s been a surge in bot activity in the past month in online discussions about reopening America from COVID-19 shutdowns, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University said this week. The researchers analyzed over 200 million tweets discussing COVID-19 and found that roughly half the accounts were likely bots. They identified the bots by looking for accounts that tweeted more frequently than humanly possible or whose location appeared to rapidly switch among different countries. It’s unclear who’s behind the surge in bot activity or whether they’re originating from the US or abroad.
eBay port scans visitors’ computers for remote access programs
When visiting the eBay.com site, a script will run that performs a local port scan of your computer to detect remote support and remote access applications. Many of these ports are related to remote access/remote support tools such as the Windows Remote Desktop, VNC, TeamViewer, Ammy Admin, and more. After learning about this, BleepingComputer conducted a test and can confirm that eBay.com is indeed performing a local port scan of 14 different ports when visiting the site. We first heard about eBay’s port scanning script from Jack Rhysider of DarkNetDiaries, and it was theorized that it was being done for ad delivery, fingerprinting, or fraud protection.
Drone deliveries are making their case in a crisis
It feels like drones were built for this moment. The coronavirus pandemic has forced everyone to spend the majority of their time indoors and, where possible, maintain a healthy distance from anyone that doesn’t live in the same building. Companies have introduced numerous measures to minimize the threat and spread of infection. Countless stores have perspex screens, for instance, and many delivery drivers will leave orders at your doorstep. But a robot — or specifically, a drone — offers a potentially safer and quicker method of exchanging goods and services. It’s no wonder, then, that so many commercial UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) operators are flourishing at the moment. In a time of crises, they’re keen to step forward and showcase the impact that drone deliveries can have on society.
Red Cross urges halt to cyberattacks on healthcare sector amid COVID-19
The Red Cross called for an end to cyberattacks on healthcare and medical research facilities during the coronavirus pandemic, in a letter published Tuesday and signed by a group of political and business figures. Such attacks endanger human lives and governments must take “immediate and decisive action” to stop them, the letter stated. “We are hoping that the world’s governments will step up to affirm their commitments to the international rules that prohibit such actions,” said Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, in the letter.
Hacking Team Founder: ‘Hacking Team is Dead’
David Vincenzetti posted a short message saying “Hacking Team is dead” on Tuesday, more than a year after the Italian company was acquired by another cybersecurity firm and rebranded as Memento Labs. As Motherboard reported earlier this year, Memento Labs is struggling to take off after several key Hacking Team employees have left, slowing down the development of new products that it would need to compete with companies such as NSO Group. Vincenzetti did not respond to a request for comment via email. Paolo Lezzi, the CEO of Memento Labs, also did not immediately reply to an email asking for comment.
